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Dance is a dude thing for performers of 10 Hairy Legs

Company to take stage at UAlbany

By Tresca Weinstein| on October 11, 2017

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Hairy Legs

Hairy Legs

Dance is a dude thing for performers of 10 Hairy Legs

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When you think of dance, is an image of a ballerina the first thing that pops into your head? Randy James, founding artistic director of the all-male dance company 10 Hairy Legs—performing at the University of Albany Performing Arts Center—wants to offer you a different picture.

"Hopefully we are contributing to the conversation (about dance) by showing people male dancers of all different shapes, sizes and colors," he said in a recent interview. "What I would love is for people to come see a concert and not leave saying, 'Where were the chicks?'"

After running his first company, Randy James Dance Works, for 15 years, James wasn't planning to start another troupe. But nine years ago, his senior class at Rutgers University, where he's been teaching for nearly two decades, inspired him to launch a new project.

"I had an incredibly strong group of male dancers that year, some of whom I'd worked with for four years before that in high school programs," James recalled. "I was choreographing a quartet on four of them, and after every rehearsal, I would go down to my office and start crying, it was so beautiful."

More Information

If you go

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 12

Where: University at Albany Performing Arts Center

Tickets: $20; students, seniors and university faculty and staff, $15

Info: 442-3995 or http://www.albany.edu/pac/

He founded 10 Hairy Legs in 2012; four of its 11 dancers are from that original Rutgers group. The company's name reflects its makeup, but it's also an indication of James' desire to create dance that is serious but also accessible, humorous and lighthearted.

"I'm all for thoughtful, beautiful (art), I love foreign films, but I also love 'The Terminator,' I love to be entertained," said the 59-year-old choreographer, who has made more than 40 works for his companies over the years. "I've done a million plies, but I've also danced in a G-string at the Playboy Club in Atlantic City."

As a repertory company, 10 Hairy Legs has commissioned two dozen works from a diverse group of choreographers (including women), most of whom had never had the opportunity to make a dance solely for men. (James also creates and commissions works that include female dancers, through 10HL Projects, an arm of the company that he established in 2015.)

The troupe has performed at downtown dance spots in its home base of New York City, like Joe's Pub and the 92nd Street Y; on national and international television, including "The Meredith Vieira Show"; and in 2016 as the only American company at the Ikapa Dance Festival in Cape Town, South Africa. Recently, they visited the middle school in New Jersey that James attended as a boy.

"I was bullied there as a child—thrown into showers with my clothes on and had to walk home soaking wet," he recalled. "And there we were, performing at an assembly that, it turned out, was all about bullying. It was quite cathartic. That night, I went home and I felt a lot lighter."

Coming to Albany, James says, is like coming home: His first commission was from Emma Willard School and his first concert was at Skidmore College, where he met the legendary Bessie Schonberg, who became the artistic adviser for his first company.

At UAlbany, the troupe will perform five pieces, showing "a variety of what it is to be a dancer, and what it is to be a male dancer," James said.

In David Parker's "Slapstuck," the dancers' Velcro suits set off an exploration of the ways in which bodies can connect and separate. The action itself produces the score for the piece, made up of rhythmical body percussion and ripping sounds. "Bud," a duet choreographed by Stephen Petronio to Rufus Wainwright's "Oh What a World," also plays with costuming: One dancer wears half a suit jacket, and his partner wears the other half.

"Quadrivium," by Megan Williams, with music by Steve Reich, highlights the men's strength and partnering ability. Also on the program is Heidi Latsky's "Solo 1," which she originally made for herself and reworked for a company member at James' request.

James says he has no political agenda with 10 Hairy Legs, but the company has a social impact nevertheless.

"Seeing two men being intimate on stage—not necessarily kissing but being intimate—might make some people uncomfortable, and then they get over it," he said. "If a couple goes home and has a discussion after a show, and they have more open minds, that's enough for me."